topic Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application in Real User Monitoring

User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 16:20:04 GMT

I am trying to use the API to get real user counts per application. I have tried the following but it isn't matching what the console is showing. Can someone shed some light on this? It seems I am getting a fraction of the userids and some of the ones that are anon it is returning those as 'null'

select usersession.userid FROM usersession where usersession.userType = 'REAL_USER' AND useraction.application = 'My Awesome Application' GROUP BY usersession.userid

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 16:36:12 GMT

It looks like the API is capping at 50 rows.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 18:59:52 GMT

Yep I found where you can set this: The framework always applies an upper limit to prevent system overload. If LIMIT is not used, 50 results are returned by default.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

joshua_dtrace — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 18:59:03 GMT

I believe from my testing the maximum rows that can be returned is 5000. So, adding a "LIMIT 5000" to the end of the USQL request would be required..

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 19:38:41 GMT

Yes I was able to get it to return the data although if I tell it to give me the count of userids in the query, the number doesn't match the user count from the User session console. I am thinking I don't have a filter or it is ignoring the timeframe filter because each time I run the query the number changes.

Query I am trying:

startTimestamp=1556733966561&endTimestamp=1556737361768&query=select count(userid) FROM usersession where usersession.userType = 'REAL_USER' AND useraction.application = 'My Awesome App' LIMIT 5000

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

joshua_dtrace — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 17:36:09 GMT

Hey Robert!

The USQL and User Sessions API only work for completed/finished sessions, whereas the in-UI User Sessions page will also show "Live"/in-progress sessions.

If your timestamp is recent enough, this could be the reason why you are seeing differences.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 20:04:52 GMT

Yes, I set the startime to be 0 so that it will give me the last 2 hours and I changed the UI to show me the last 2 hours? I am trying to get the unique users that have access my website in the last hour. The same data that shows up when I click on the User Sessions in the UI. You are saying though that the API will only give me the completed correct? I am just trying to get a count of how many users have been to my website in the last 2 hours. So this would be the count of users that have completed sessions and current live users.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

joshua_dtrace — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 17:36:32 GMT

Live sessions are most commonly seen during the last 2 hours, so that is correct that the USQL results will be different by only having the completed sessions displayed.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 20:43:24 GMT

Is there any way in the API to get live session data? If I am only counting completed sessions, I am not really getting the true count of users that have been or are still on the website in the last 2 hours. The UI gives me this information.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

joshua_dtrace — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 17:36:46 GMT

Not using the USQL API, no. There is an upcoming improvement in the next quarter or so to include a "user count" for Web Applications via the Timeseries API. This might help with your use-case.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

robert_auten — Wed, 01 May 2019 21:20:11 GMT

Thank you for that information! What I probably will end up doing is just checking the numbers once a day at a time when there shouldn't be much traffic on the website. That at least will give me a good ball park of users that used the system during the day.

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

joshua_dtrace — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 17:37:02 GMT

You're very welcome, Robert!
And sounds good!

Re: User Session\Action API Get User count for application

Montalvo — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:51:12 GMT

Greetings Joshua,

I'm currently trying to get the same exact data as Robert, I was checking the Timeseries API but I couldn't understand how this can be possible using it.

I was also reading and find out that there's an "extrapolationLevel" field that according to the documentation, it means:

The number is the denominator of a fraction and indicates the amount of actual data. The value 1 means that the result contains only the actual data. The value 4 means that result is calculated using 1/4 of the actual data.

How can I change this value in order to be set to 1 since I've tried passing it on the params request but it seems like it is not mutable.

Here's an example of my results:

Request:

import requests headers = { 'accept': 'application/json', 'Authorization': 'Api-Token dt0c01.xxxxxx-xxxxxxx', } params = { 'query': 'SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT ip) AS \'distinct_ip\' FROM usersession WHERE (userType=\'REAL_USER\' AND (useraction.application=\'sandals.com\' OR userevent.application=\'sandals.com\' OR usererror.application=\'sandals.com\')) LIMIT 1000', 'startTimestamp': '3600000', 'addDeepLinkFields': 'false', 'explain': 'false', } response = requests.get('https://hudxxxxx.live.dynatrace.com/api/v1/userSessionQueryLanguage/table', params=params, headers=headers) print(response.json())

Response:

{ "extrapolationLevel": 4, "columnNames": [ "distinct_ip" ], "values": [ [ 1489990 ] ] }

According to my Session Query results, the "values" should be around 500-600ish

Can you please help me!

Regards,